An Introduction

Flavours of the Month

Overseas Trips

The A List

25 December 2010

Merry Christmas Everybody!

This is the closest that I could get in this Beijing series to show something vaguely Christmas-y to usher in the holiday weekend. Starbucks in Beijing is a godsend by the way, because China is still very much a tea country and you would be hard-pressed to find a good cuppa. It's a perfect thing to have really in the middle of a cold, winter night.

Wangfujing Street is one of the oldest streets in Beijing, but it would be difficult to appreciate this historical fact when it's now lined with modern and well-established brands like Tag Heuer, Cartier and Hermès. You can find your delightful Starbucks here as well. Come to think of it, they're all not even Chinese, but there is that one Li-Ning flagship store if you're interested.

Beside Wangfujing is the Donghuamen Night Market, a popular tourist haunt featuring rows of interesting food and souvenir stalls. Everything here is up for a bargain, and so what you pay is really how much you want to pay. The souvenir stalls are pretty much similar in that their wares are the same, but you'd be surprised at how different the prices can be. Food stalls meanwhile have typical things like soup noodles, skewered meat and stir-fried dishes. Else, for the more adventurous of course, there's some interesting delicacies on offer.

Would you like your scorpion small and soft, or big, hard and (I suppose) crispy? How about a once water-galloping seahorse? Or maybe something absolutely mushy inside, a larvae perhaps? Food blogger or not, I did not venture into the unknown. I paid too much for dinner to want to be reminded of how it looks like (in abstract form) on the floor.